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Prison Inmates Did Practice Run Night Before Escape; What Happens Next to Prison Escapee?; Security Ramped Up in U.S. for July 4th Holiday; Greece Signals It May Accept Bailout Terms; Trump Makes New Hampshire Stop Amid Controversy. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 01, 2015 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: According to district attorney Andrew Wiley, the former fugitive says he and fellow inmate Richard Matt nearly escaped the maximum security prison the night before on their dry run, but decided the first manhole they reached was not secluded enough, Sweat telling investigators that Joyce Mitchell was supposed to pick them up and drive to West Virginia before heading to Mexico.

[07:00:11] ANDREW WYLIE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, CLINTON COUNTY: There was occasions where they heard the helicopters.

CASAREZ: Wylie telling NBC News Sweat and Matt often tuned into AM radio while on the run, continuing to change directions as they moved toward Canada. Sweat says he and Matt were very close to being caught several times.

WYLIE: The sheriff's deputy vehicle had pulled up in the vicinity of where they were, and they were somewhat surprised. And they said -- I think he said Matt fell backwards and, you know, made some noise, but the sheriff's deputy didn't locate them.

CASAREZ: Wylie also telling NBC News at one point Sweat said authorities were combing the forest floor while he was hiding in a tree stand used for hunting right above them.

This, as we are now seeing a graphic image of Richard Matt moments after he was shot. The photo shows Matt lying on the ground, a gunshot wound to the top of his skull.

Meanwhile, CNN learns the inmates started planning and may have started cutting through the prison walls six months ago. The scrutiny intensifying on the correctional facility as a dozen employees are now on administrative leave, including prison executives like Superintendent Steven Racette, who initially led Governor Andrew Cuomo on a tour of how the convicts broke free.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: And one big question has been how could employees not hear power tools going on? Well, David Sweat is saying they actually used hacksaws to get out of their cell and then to saw into the steam pipe, not noisy power tools -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The question is, can he be believed? Jean, thank you very much.

Sweat is definitely talking from the hospital, and that's good. But he's a self-described escape artist. So is it safe to have him there? That's the question for officials, especially now that his hospital stay is drawing to a close. Where does he go next?

CNN's Sara Ganim is following that for us at the Albany Medical Center -- Sara.

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

Yes, his condition continues to improve here at the Albany Medical Center, being upgraded from serious to fair yesterday. Although officials say he continues to be here, that he's receiving treatment. He will be here for a few more days.

He's, of course, being held in a very secure part of the hospital, an area that's used only for inmates with trained -- a trained security team, Chris. And they also have to make a decision when he's healed enough to leave this hospital, where does he go? The Department of Corrections has to make a decision about where to put him for the rest of his life. Of course, he's serving a life sentence.

You know, it's very unlikely, Chris, that he'll go back to the maximum-security prison where he just broke out of about three weeks ago. He could be considered both a hero and also a target inside that prison, which would obviously be a security threat.

And so, the Department of Corrections is going to have to make a decision about where to put him. Although the district attorney saying that it's very likely he will spend the rest of his days in solitary confinement. The D.A. saying that he will charge him with the escape, with burglary and any other crimes he committed while on the run, and the D.A. also saying it is very unlikely he will be given any kind of plea deal -- Chris.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Sara, I'll take it here. Thank you so much.

Breaking overnight, flames roar through a historic black South Carolina church. The FBI and ATF are now investigating what sparked this blaze at Mt. Zion AME. There are concerns this could have been arson.

It is not the first time this church went up in flames. It was set fire by the KKK back in 1995. The latest incident, of course, comes on the heels of a massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.

Law enforcement officials are ramping up security measures ahead of the Fourth of July weekend. The action coming after authorities got word of possible terrorist threats, including some from suspected ISIS supporters right here in the United States.

Justice correspondent Pamela Brown joins us with this, ahead of the long weekend. PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Speaking to counterterrorism

officials about this weekend. And the feeling I'm getting, the sense I'm getting is that there is more concern this Fourth of July compared to last Fourth of July, because of how ISIS has been using social media to reach out to supporters and the fact that this Fourth of July coincides with the holy month of Ramadan.

And ISIS has been telling its supporters that, if they attack now, that they will be rewarded more than ever. So sources tell me that there is increased chatter leading into this weekend. And that is partially what is behind this FBI/DHS bulletin that was sent out last Friday.

The big predominant concern remains the lone wolf, the homegrown violent extremists that could act out at any moment. And we've seen law enforcement take more aggressive action with arrests. There have been 49 ISIS-related arrests since the beginning of the year. And several just this week. There was one in New Jersey, and then recently a Queens college student was arrested for allegedly plotting to plot bombs in New York around the New York area.

[07:05:10] We know that, in response to this concern, that local police are going to boost security around the holiday, at special events, celebrations where a lot of people will be gathering, particularly NYPD and other big cities in response to this.

We should mention, though, that there aren't any credible, specific threats at this point. But again, it's very hard, given the nature of the ISIS threat, to know what credible threats are to know when an attack is going to happen before it does.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely, Pamela. Thanks so much for all that background.

We have more breaking news this morning. Greece may be moving closer to a deal to help its finances, this hours after going into default. So there's word this morning that the prime minister may accept an offer, but there's a catch.

CNN's business correspondent Richard Quest is live in Athens for us.

So Richard, what is the latest with this deal?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely stunning. Quite remarkable. Extraordinary. The adjectives just aren't enough this morning, Alisyn.

This is the letter that the Greek government has sent to the Europeans, basically saying "yes" to everything that they'd said "no" to only last week. They've made some minor changes and made some small requests, but the thrust of it is that they are saying all the terms that the Europeans were demanding last Friday are now agreeable to the Greek government.

The only problem, of course, was since then, the country's banks are closed, the markets are shut, the country's defaulted. It's -- we're waiting to hear anytime now from the Greek prime minister about why he has done this 180 degrees complete about-turn. But, once we know the details, which every way you look at it, it's extraordinary. The Greek government is now saying "yes" when it had previously said "no" -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, stay on it for us, Richard. Appreciate the reporting.

So as if impending famine and all-out civil war wasn't daunting enough, we have a new development in Yemen. About 1,200 prisoners are now running free after anti-Houthi rebels stormed a prison. A good number of the prisoners have ties to al Qaeda, but most are anti- Houthi fighters who have been battling for months to regain control of Yemen's government from the Iranian-backed rebels.

PEREIRA: More fallout from last year's drama in Ferguson. A draft report from the Justice Department criticizes Ferguson Police for their response to the unrest after Michael Brown's death. This report cites a number of missteps by police in Ferguson, St. Louis city and county and state highway patrol, blaming their tactics for aggravating tensions. That full report is due in the coming weeks.

CAMEROTA: OK, back to our top story. Twelve prison employees on leave in the wake of that prison break. This, as we learn the escapees made a dry run of their getaway the night before they broke out.

For more information, let's bring in Chris Swecker. He's a former assistant director of the criminal investigative division of the FBI.

Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS SWECKER, FORMER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION, FBI: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: OK, you have dealt with hundreds of captured fugitive cases. As you know, some of them speak to investigators; some of them don't. Why do you think David Sweat is telling officials so much?

SWECKER: Well, I'll tell you, that puzzles me, because his only bargaining chip was the information that he had. And so, if he didn't make a deal, he's sort of gratuitously passing this information. So I'm a little bit surprised. He's a smart guy, and he's been around the criminal justice system for a while.

CAMEROTA: But maybe he has made a deal. I mean, do you think that part of it -- the reason he's spilling the beans is because maybe they have offered him something?

SWECKER: Well, it's very possible. I've heard the D.A. say publicly, no deals. But that -- you know, that's -- I wouldn't take that to the bank.

CAMEROTA: Well, his mother has a different take. She says that he was always like this, that even as a child, he confessed to his crimes. Let's listen to her for a second. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA SWEAT, DAVID SWEAT'S MOTHER: No, he always told on himself all the time when he was a kid. I wasn't really surprised that he did it.

I still say to this day, if that woman didn't, and whoever else was involved, didn't give them that stuff, those guys would have never broke out of jail. They wouldn't have had nothing to do it with. You know, I blame them as well as the two guys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Always interesting to hear from a prisoner's mother so that you can see -- see if there's any way to sort of retrace the steps of what they became.

And what she's saying is that she doesn't really -- she's not using personal responsibility there. She's saying that she blames the prison officials as much as him. And in part, you agree. I mean, you think that there were red flags before this, at this prison?

SWECKER: Well, there's a grain of truth to what she says. I mean, if the prison guards and the prison, the way the prison was run, from the executive management on down, was loose. They ran it like a prison camp. So I think the best you can say is under these circumstances, is there's malfeasance. The worst you can say is there was criminal activity going on in there by the guards and maybe even higher.

[07:10:09] CAMEROTA: Well, let's talk about this. Because there were three top prison executives who are now on leave. Nine security staffers, meaning guards, that are also on leave. So do you believe that these -- does that mean, the fact that they're all on leave, does that mean that they were involved somehow in this prison break or aware, somehow, of this prison break, or just incompetent?

SWECKER: Well, they escaped three weeks ago. If they were -- it just seems odd that this -- these suspensions take place right after Sweat is captured and right after he begins to talk. So I think you can draw a link between the two. He's talking. These suspensions come about. So obviously, he's provided some information about them that's at least suspicious, enough for them to implement these suspensions.

Now we have the inspector general coming in and the FBI doing a criminal investigation with all their powers, the grand jury subpoena, for example. Great tool.

CAMEROTA: Now I was reading that you believe that this will lead to a major racketeering case. What does that mean?

SWECKER: Well, as head of the criminal division, we -- in the -- for about two and a half years, we would look at these type of cases where there's systemic corruption or alleged systemic corruption inside a prison as potentially RICO cases. And you basically have organized crime inside a prison. At least that's the allegations that we -- that we would receive. And if you look at Rikers; there's a prison in Maryland, that's

exactly how the FBI investigated those cases, and there were indictments to that effect. So drug trafficking, extortion, bribery, prostitution, sounds a lot like organized crime.

CAMEROTA: So in other words, it's not that you believe that these -- that people were in on the escape. It's that there were so much other corruption happening within the prison that they had taken their eye off the ball?

SWECKER: Well, correct. Maybe a little of both. Maybe just a general lax attitude in the prison allows and enables the corrupt activities to take place. And then a byproduct of that is these prisoners escape in such a loose environment.

CAMEROTA: Well, given all of these administrative leaves now, something clearly was going on. Chris Swecker, thanks so much for your insight into this case. Thanks for being on NEW DAY.

Let's get back to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn.

Donald Trump is hot on the campaign trail, amid swirling controversy over his derogatory remarks about Mexican immigrants. Trump is making a stop in New Hampshire. And where Trump goes, the media circus is sure to follow. So let's get in on it. CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter in Manchester with more.

Good morning, Brian.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

The press pack here for Trump last night, Chris, you know, it is kind of crazy, as you can imagine, that the Miss USA pageant has become a casualty of Trump's presidential campaign. But that's exactly what's happened, since NBC and Univision both say they will not now broadcast the pageant on July 12. That's because Trump owns half of the pageant, and they are trying to take a protest of sorts against what he said about immigrants.

Now, last night for the first time, Trump addressed this controversy. He said that NBC and Univision are abandoning the contestants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They left 51 wonderful girls who worked so hard, all their lives, to become a representative and go to the Miss USA pageant.

What NBC and Univision did to these young women was disgraceful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: Now, some of the biggest applause lines at that event were when Trump went after NBC and went after Univision. But so far, he's only suing one of them. He's suing Univision, he says, for $500 million because of this contract that's been broken over this pageant.

Now, what's going to happen to Miss USA? Both the co-host, Thomas Roberts, and Cheryl Burke, have dropped out. They say they're not going to participate on July 12.

But the contestants are already in Louisiana. They're already ready for the pageant. And there are plans now underway to live stream it instead of putting it on television.

Meanwhile, for Trump, this is an issue that he's going to keep pushing for days. He says he's going to be in Louisiana for the pageant. He'll continue to critique the media there, I'm sure -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Brian. We're going to watch Donald Trump. Tonight he's going to make his case when he sits down with Don Lemon at 10 p.m. Eastern only on CNN, so you can see his latest round of defending himself there. Brian covering for us.

What do you think?

CAMEROTA: I think it's interesting to look at his poll numbers and the fact that he is surging at the moment among Republicans. The latest CNN poll -- maybe we can even put it up -- he's No. 2, right after Jeb Bush. So the controversy that he's embroiled in has not hurt him at the moment.

PEREIRA: But again, as one of our fantastic experts said earlier, it's a long game. Right? Four hundred and ninety-five days to go. It's a very smart field; you've got 14 candidates. This early on, how much does that make a difference? I mean, it's interesting to note, but is it significant?

CUOMO: All of those people who are applauding him when he says think about the young women in this pageant and how they're being affected by this. He started this, not NBC, not Univision. This is because of what Trump started, not them.

Who knows? Just because you're suing somebody doesn't mean you're going to win the lawsuit, that's for sure. But this is a big "to be continued."

[07:15:12] PEREIRA: Certainly to be continued. In fact, it will continue here on NEW DAY. How will The Donald's comments about Mexican immigrants affect his 2016 chances? We're going to put that very question to Iowa Congressman Steve King, who's joining us here on NEW DAY, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Two big hot-button issues are driving politics in America today. We're going to discuss both of them.

First Donald Trump. Rapists, criminals, bad people. That's how he described the majority of Mexican immigrants. Who would defend that proposition? Well, there are obviously people out there, because he's surging in the polls. And also gay marriage. The Supreme Court says it's one way. There are those who are saying it is one of the biggest violations of public policy in the court's history. Who will defend that proposition?

The answer to both is Representative Steve King, a Republican from Iowa. He is on the House Judiciary Committee and the chairman of the conservative Opportunity Society.

Congressman, always a pleasure to have you on NEW DAY, sir.

REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: My pleasure. Good morning, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. So, you, in the past, have had trouble when you were characterizing your position on immigrant, when you made your "cantaloupe calves" comments. Would your advice to Donald Trump be not to couch his feelings about border security in painting Mexican immigrants in the ugliest way?

[07:20:06] KING: Well, I would say to Donald Trump, I appreciate the scrappiness of him. When he is -- when he's attacked by other people, he counterattacks and plunges forward; and he delivers more facts to support the statements that he's made.

Now, it would be nice if we could always talk nice about these things and couch these things in terms. But I've done that a lot, but I never get quoted for that, Chris. Sometimes you have to say it real plain so people understand it.

And I heard that Donald Trump just on Saturday night in Iowa make a statement that, he pointed out about how many of these kids that are coming into the United States illegally from Central America are sexually violated and raped. He said 80 percent.

I've been down to the border and checked across these places. The number I come back with is 75 percent are sexually abused on the way to the United States.

So I'd say in Donald Trump's defense, somebody is doing that to these kids that are being raped and abused. And when they're coming across Mexico, it's reasonable assumption to conclude the people doing that are Mexicans.

CUOMO: Right. But you know, playing with facts, you can make them say what they want. You know the net immigration rate now from Mexico is almost zero, because many are going back because the economic opportunities haven't been what they were in the past.

And saying that someone is raped on their way immigrating to America is different than saying they are a rapist. You get the distinction.

And saying that you care about border security is one thing. Saying that people who come across this border are rapists, druggies and criminals is not just statistically untrue, but just unfair on some level. Don't you agree with that?

KING: Well, I think what happens is that -- that it gets distorted, perhaps a little bit, on both sides of this.

CUOMO: But that's what he said, Congressman. And then, when he was given the chance to, you know, "Hey, do you want to say something else? Do you want to take back what you just said about calling most Mexican immigrants these things," he said, "No, I'm 100 percent right."

KING: But Chris, he didn't say most Mexicans were rapists. He said they are -- he's speaking -- generally speaking of the criminals that are doing this.

And I'd go back to this point. I mean, I have -- go down there. I talk to the people that are working with these children that are coming across. I've walked through these transit places where we've built buildings down there to house them. And I ask the workers that are working with them, what percentage are abused? What percentage are raped? They tell me 75 percent.

Donald Trump says his numbers are 80. That's not very far apart. So somebody is doing that. You can't be a rape victim without having a rapist.

CUOMO: I know. But you're making an assumption that it's other immigrants who are violating these people on the way through here. And I just think that it's a little bit misleading. And you know that immigrants are 5 times less likely to be in prison than native people here. So, to say that they're mostly criminals...

KING: I don't know about that. That would surprise me...

CUOMO: I'll send you the number.

KING: ... when 30 percent of our prison population are criminal aliens.

CUOMO: Or that they are people who are in jail for being illegal immigrants here, as opposed to what they did here in committing crimes.

Let's change topics, though, because there's another hot topic for you. Gay marriage. The Supreme Court made its ruling that this is an extension of equal protection. The right exists. You disagree because?

KING: I'm flabbergasted that the court could come to that conclusion. By the way, I've got a -- some history in this. The Iowa Supreme Court came with a similar conclusion back in 2009. We voted three of the justices off the state Supreme Court for that reason.

But for them to cite the equal protection clause and the due process clause on the 14th Amendment, Chris, that amendment was ratified in 1868. For the Supreme Court to take the position that somehow the people that voted to ratify the Constitution -- ratify the 14th Amendment in 1868 were planning that we would somehow come to the realization that they'd written same-sex marriage rights into that, I would say no one who voted to ratify that 14th Amendment gave that a thought or, if they happened to give it a thought, which is very unlikely, they weren't thinking that they were writing language in there that would do such a thing.

CUOMO: Well, you could say the same thing about race.

KING: I would say this is overreach on the part of the court.

CUOMO: You could say the same thing about race and anti-miscegenation laws. They were unpopular. People voted to keep blacks and whites from marrying together. And eventually the court found that, no, they count as people, obviously.

KING: You can say this. You can say that about race, Chris, but we had the Dred Scott decision and the people, at the same time in 1868 ratified the 13th Amendment and the 14th Amendment to end slavery and make sure there was equal rights for people, all people, all God's children who had immutable characteristics; not self-proclaimed characteristics but immutable characteristics. And that's the distinction here.

CUOMO: Well, it's a distinction to you, Congressman.

KING: You cannot compare the two things. OK?

CUOMO: Of course you can. Of course you can. They're both people. Gay people are people; brown people are people. You're saying that being gay is not an immutable human characteristic, and race is, right? That's what you're saying.

[07:25:00] KING: That's correct. That's correct. And once you cross that line, there are no -- there are no immutable -- nothing but immutable characteristics and constitutional-defined protection in the Civil Rights Act of 18 -- or of 1964. And that is when you cross that line. You get into hate crimes. You get into self-proclaimed behaviors or inclinations. Then that's within the person. That make that claim. They can't be independently verified. And...

CUOMO: But that's very debatable. You talk to LGBT people, they will say this is as much of their essence as any other part of them. But the bigger question becomes this: How does this hurt you? Saying that all people have an equal right to marry whom they love, how does this hurt you that it's fueling this outrage among conservatives and Christians?

KING: Chris, I have confined my debate to this thing through the Constitution and the rule of law. I've been through this in the past. I sued Governor Vilsack in Iowa successfully on a separation of powers issue that was very similar to this. We went through this in Iowa. Now we have it at the federal level. I'm one of the authors of Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act.

Here's how it is. The Constitution does not provide a right to marriage. Even though the Supreme Court says it does, it does not. And if the Congress decided to pass such a law that had mirrored what the Supreme Court has, I think, wrongfully ordered last Friday, it would be found unconstitutional, because we don't have the authority in Congress to impose same-sex marriage on all the states on all the people within them.

But if the states should make those decisions within their legislatures, they do have the constitutional right to pass same-sex marriage within the states, and they have a right to recognize reciprocity.

This needs to follow a process, a due process. The people in America have a right to due process, too. Five black-robed judges deciding to transform American society at their whim is the wrong thing to do, especially when two of them were conducting same-sex marriages in their spare time.

CUOMO: But often, the idea of identifying a right and what is popular are very different. Although there may be more of a confluence here than you suggested, because the recent polls has it, like, 60/30 that people are in favor of same-sex marriage.

But let's pick it up another day as we see more of the reaction. Representative King, always a pleasure to get your perspective on NEW DAY, sir.

KING: Thank you, Chris. The Supreme Court should not be looking at polls.

CUOMO: I understand. I was making the point about its popularity. Thank you, though, sir. Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Chris.

New CNN polling is out this morning with a revealing look at the 2016 field. Which Republican has front-runner status? And can any Republican challenge Hillary Clinton? John King is here in studio dissecting the numbers with us, "Inside Politics."

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